College Daze
by JA Baker
Summary: Buffy springs a surprise visit on Dawn while she’s at Metropolis University, and has an unexpected encounter at a party...


_Warning: minor Buffy/Lana fem-slash with mention of past Buffy/Faith and Lana/Chloe.  
__Set post season 7 of Buffy and during season 5 of Smallville._

**College Daze**

Buffy could hear the music long before she reached the address that came with the monthly bills for Dawn's ongoing education. The second thing she noticed was the number of people passed out on the side of the road near the big old house that his little, and defiantly under-21 sister was supposedly living at. She suppressed the urge to go charging into the building and drag Dawn out by her hair, and decided to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Parking her rental, and making sure it was properly locked, she made her way into along the path and up the steps to the open front door. The music was so loud it was bordering on painful, but her Slayer senses weren't registering anything she had to be worried about. There were one or two strange vibes, but nothing she could put her finger on.

Slipping through the door was no problem: the guy who was supposed to be keeping an eye on just who was coming and going was engaged in an in-depth study of a young redhead's tonsils and paid her no attention. Buffy looked around, trying to find her sister amid the mass of young people who filled every available seat, table and square-foot of floor. The house was massive, and Buffy could have looked in every room and missed her by a matter of inches and never known it.

"Get off of me!" A young voice protested from the next room, and Buffy went into hunter-killer mode, zeroing in on the source of the complaint. Pushing her way though the crowed, she stepped through the doorway to find an attractive young woman trying to pull away from an almost stereotypical Jock in a football jersey. The young woman hit out with a rather impressive kick to the upper arm, but the caveman who was holding her just laughed as he tried to pull her close enough to kiss.

"Anyone ever tell you that No means No?" Buffy asked as she stood in the doorway, hands on her hips.

"What's it to you, bitch?" The jerk asked before belching in her face, sending the stench of stale beer all over the slayer. He looked at two almost identically dressed goons behind him, "Why don't you boys take our little friend up here upstairs and show her a good time?"

One of the jocks went to grab Buffy's shoulder, but she grabbed his wrist and bent it back, stopping just short of snapping it like a twig. The pain got through to his alcohol-fogged mind just as Buffy kicked out at his solar-plexus, driving the air from his lungs. He fell to the floor, gasping for breath. The second jock sneered as he smashed an empty beer bottle on the nearby table and tried to catch Buffy with a badly aimed slash across the face.

The Slayer reacted by stepping into the attack: grabbing the much larger mans wrist, she pulled him over her shoulder in a textbook judo throw and twisted his wrist until he dropped the broken bottle. Placing on foot on the back of his shoulder, she pulled his arm so sharply it almost popped out of his shoulder.

"Now then," She smiled, looking at the caveman, "I'm guessing that you and your two buddies here are on football scholarships, right? Now just ask yourself what will happen if I dislocate your friends arm here? Then imagine it's your arm I'm mangling. Still think that no means yes?"

"No...No mama." The shocked frat-boy stuttered, letting the young woman he'd been holding go, "I'm sorry."

"No, you're shocked." Buffy let the man she was pinning down go, "Sorry is what you'll be if I ever see you try this shit ever again. You get me, or do you want to draw it in crayon?"

The caveman just nodded as he backed away, almost tripping over the first of his two friends, who was only just recovering from Buffy's devastating kick. The three football players staggered out of the house and onto the lawn and out of sight. The room erupted in cheers as Buffy dusted herself down and walked over to the shaken young woman she'd just rescued.

"Are you OK?" She asked, "You want me to call the cops or something?"

"I'm fine." The woman answered with a mid-western accent, "Normally I can handle myself, but he caught me off guard." She looked at Buffy, "Are you a student here?"

"No, I'm just visiting my sister." The Slayer explained, "Her names Dawn. Dawn Summers. I'm Buffy."

"Lana Lang." The woman smiled, "I know Dawn; we have a couple of classes together. She didn't say anything about you visiting."

"This is kind of a surprise visit. Do you know where she is?"

"She's not here: her journalism class has a field trip to Chicago. She's away till Tuesday."

"That'll teach me to call ahead next time." Buffy sighed, "You sure you're going to be OK?"

"Yeah," Lana nodded, "I think I'm just going to head back to my dorm room."

"I'll walk you." Buffy shrugged, "Not like I've got anything else to do for the next few days."

The two made their way back to the front door and out into the cool, night air. They both laughed when they saw the three football players passed out on the lawn, snoring loudly.

"So what do you do for a living?" Lana asked as she led the way back to her dorm room.

"You mean when I'm not hospitalizing the entire defensive line-up of the Metropolis-U Football team?" Buffy smiled, "I work for a charitable organization called the Travis Foundation: they do everything from archaeological digs to collage scholarships. I'm what you might call a trouble shooter: they call me in when a situation gets a little out of hand and they need someone senior enough that their word carried enough weight to get things sorted."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you seem a little young for such an important job." Lana looked at the older woman a little sceptically, "What aren't you saying?"

"Sorry; it's a secret." Buffy laughed, "Let's just say that some of the situations I have to deal with are a lot like back at the party and leave it at that. I'm not a killer or anything, but some of the people our organization occasionally deals into can require a little extra encouragement to keep up their end of the bargain. Thankfully my reputation usually precedes me, and I don't have to do anything but be there."

"And other times you hospitalizing the entire defensive line-up of a football team." Lana joked, shaking her head, "Dawn said that you were a little, unusual."

"My sister sometimes disagrees with my chosen profession. But as a collage drop-out with little chance of ever getting back into full-time education, I go with what I've got." Buffy stopped outside the tall building that housed Lana's dorm, "You going to be OK?"

"I'm fine." Lana smiled, "Do you want to come up and use the phone to call Dawn?"

"It's getting late, and I wouldn't want to disturb your room mate, unless you're one of those lucky people who have a room all to themselves."

"No such luck, but Chloe, my room-mate, is on the same trip as Dawn." Lana almost pouted, "Please; it's the least I can do to thank you for helping out back there."

"OK, but I'll make it quick." Buffy nodded as she followed the other woman into the building and up the stairs, "The last thing I want to do is run up your phone bill with a late night call to Chicago."

The room Lana shared with her absent friend was about the same size as the one Buffy had called home during her short stay at the now destroyed University of California, Sunnydale. It was a relatively simple affair, with two beds pushed up against opposite walls, a small en-suite bathroom and just enough closet space. Lana busied herself making them both a cup of coffee while Buffy used the phone to dial Dawn's mobile number from memory. She sat on the edge of one of the beds, looking out through a rather up-market telescope until she got Dawn's voice-mail.

"Hi, it's me." She sighed, always hating leavening messages, "I'm in Metropolis for a few days, but apparently you're not. I'll call back again tomorrow and we'll decide what to do from there. Love you, bye."

"No luck?" Lana asked rhetorically as she handed over a cup of steaming coffee.

"Just her voice-mail." Buffy took the cup, "Nice telescope. Yours?"

"A gift from a friend." Lana nodded, "I'm an astronomy major."

"You must have some friends if one of them can spring for something like that."

"Well, not to drop names, but Lex Luthor."

"The billionaire Lex Luthor?" Buffy almost spilled her coffee in shock, "One of the most eligible bachelors in America Lex Luthor?"

"The one and only: he lives just outside my hometown, and we have a couple of mutual friends. He's actually quite a nice guy, when you get to now him. Driven, but deep down he seems to want to do the right thing."

"Well you certainly know how to pick your friends..."

They talked for hours about nothing of any importance, growing comfortable with each others presence, until Buffy saw just how early it was getting, and decided to head back to her hotel and get some sleep.

"It was nice meeting you." She smiled as she headed for the door, "Maybe we can grab a coffee again in a day or two and you can fill me in on all the things that my sister won't tell me in her occasional e-mail."

"And betray my friends trust?" Lana mocked shock, "How could you ask me to do such a thing."

"I wouldn't: you seem like the kind of person Dawn needs as a friend." Buffy stood looking at the young woman who was standing within arms reach and held out her hand, "Thanks again."

"I'm the one who should be thanking you." Lana shook the offered hand, but didn't let go. She looked into Buffy's eyes as she closed the distance between them and pressed her lips against those of her older companion.

Buffy went to say something, but the moment her mouth opened, she felt it invaded by Lana's warm tongue. She lent back against the still closed door and felt the other woman's worm body pressed up against her own. It was an unusual feeling, but she was still caught up in the slight Slayer-high that she'd developed while dealing with the three goons at the party. Under normal circumstances, she would have taken matters into her own hands when she got back to her hotel room, but that was starting to look like less and less of an option...

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The soft caress of sunlight on her face woke Buffy later that morning, and she stretched a little to work out a few kinks. The soft, almost ticklish feel of human hair under her nose made her smile, and she opened her eyes. They shot wide open when she saw Lana lying curled up next to her in the collage student's bed, completely naked. Jumbled memories from the night before played back through her mind as she tried to decide if she should stay and talk about what had happened, or try and sneak out before Lana woke up.

The decision was taken out of her hands when Lana woke with a start, seemingly equally surprised to find herself in bed with another woman.

"Hi." Buffy blushed.

"Hi." Lana nodded, "Did we...?"

"Yes." Buffy pulled the covers up to protect her modesty, "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm straight. I mean, there was that one time with my friend Faith after her boyfriend left her, but we were both drunk and don't remember much..."

"I'm not gay." Lana insisted, "I mean, Chloe and I did the typical drunken collage experimental thing one night, but I've never been attracted to another woman."

"But you're the one who kissed me last night." Buffy pointed out as she looked round for her cloths, "I remember that part."

"I know," Lana admitted, "I seem to have this thing about needing to be rescued: my last boyfriend was always getting me out of scrapes."

"Can we agree to never mention this again?" Buffy asked hopefully as she started to dress as fast as she could, "I really like you, as a friend, and I wouldn't want to mess that up if it can be avoided."

"This is defiantly something I'm never going to tell anyone else about, ever again." Lana nodded.

"Yeah, and you might want to see someone about that damsel in distress thing: it's not healthy." Buffy grabbed her jacket and all but ran to the door, "I'll catch you later."

"Bye." Lana called out, before sinking back below the covers, "Smooth move, Lang..."

The End


End file.
